Welcome to Whistler

We've been in Whistler for two weeks now and it already feels like home! What have we been doing for the last 2 weeks you ask? Good question..I'll try to remember!

Well there was the trip from Van which started very early and there were just over 40 of us from TWHC standing outside the Samesun in the dark trying to work out how we and all our luggage was going to fit on the bus!

There were a few people that made us feel not so bad about all our bags! At the end of the day though all the stuff was a necessity so thanks to the bus driver and his tetris skills (and potential breach of health and safety regulations by stacking gear on seats and piling it in the aisle of the bus)! Nether the less the bus ride up was amazing and if there hadn't been so many clouds around we would've got some sweet photos! Still..we were on our way to Whistler!

Then we checked into our house at Brio Staff Housing,  lugged our gear up the stairs and met our new housemates. We're sharing with 2 girls, one from NZ and one from London. So far so good, but I imagine things are going to get interesting when we all start work at the same time and want to use the bathroom at the same time! The apartment itself we are also pretty happy with; It was a lot bigger and much nicer than what we were expecting!

Brio house 

Our pad

Our room (2 x single beds = a GIANT bed! we don't know what to do with half of it!)

Our house decorations are minimal but we've got the essentials up there (incl park, bus and village maps!)

 

We've spent a few days wandering around the village getting ourselves orientated, taking lots of photos of the village pre snow, took a bus trip down to Squamish to stock up on necessities at Walmart, watched the snow fall (and then disappear), went ice skating, discovered a few cheap eats around town ($4.95 all day meals at El Furni's are pretty good), found out where I can do free yoga, joined the gym, and of course, met lots of new people!

Base 2 pre snow

View down to Blackcomb gondala pre snow (the big building is the Panpac hotel which is where my work is!)

We also started training at work which has been pretty good and broken up our days a bit. Everyone is just  hanging out until the snow falls, the mountain opens and we can all work and get into the swing of things! Whistler is opening this Saturday (17 Nov - 1 week earlier than expected) and Blackcomb will open the following weekend as scheduled (22 Nov)  Bring it on!

Rhys was lucky enough to get an early start at work, he was originally scheduled to start on the 22nd Nov with the second wave of lifties but there were a few guys who didn't show up to the first day so he got in early and is ready to start! Their training has been pretty intensive and after the first few days we were in the village buying more thermals for him as it was a little chillier than expected up there!! Temps arent even close to how low they will be during the season so might be interesting for him!!

I've learned what a rental tech does! Essentially I'm working in the rental division at the back of Salomon store at the base of the blackcomb mountain, right next to the gondala and in the centre of the village. THe store itself is pretty cool and we were shocked by the price of everything when we walked in the first time! even more shocked to find that people wont hesitate to walk in and drop $2000+ on a second set of gear just to use on their week holiday at Whistler.. oh it would be nice to have that kind of money!

So i've learned a lot about all the different kinds of skis, how to set up bindings on skis and boards, how to fit boots, how to 'upsale' and how to calculate DIN settings. It was all a bit overwhelming but I had my first practice customer (Rhys) the other day and I'm more than excited to get started!

 
I get to fit boots and use a skrew driver to set the settings on the skis and set bindings on boards! pretty cool


I also had an interview with Whistler Babysitting and am hoping to pick up a few babysitting shifts here and there. The money is much better than what i'm getting at the store and the work will be very different to what i'm used to so i guess we'll see how that goes!

Snow making

Aside from that, we've spent far too much money and need to start work so we don't draw into our savings too much! we've met a lot of people, learned the cheapest alcohol at the liquor store (you can buy 1.5L of red wine for $14.99 and 2L of 7% cider for $8.99!) , taken plenty of photos and are now just sitting on our hands waiting for the snow so we can start work and official kickstart our lives as Ski Bums :)

And just for the record.. it's so nice not living out a backpack any more!

E x